The second episode of Lost’s final season sees a very confused Sayid waking up after a little nap—or uh, after being dead for a few minutes—and wondering where he and his friends are, how they got there and who all these barefoot temple-dwellers are. Luckily Hurley’s there to fill his old friend in, telling Sayid, “It’s the Others, dude. They caught us. Again.”
Sayid’s entry back into the world of the living gets the temple Others all atwitter. Claiming they want to ask Sayid a few questions in private, they take him to the leader’s private room. Instead of questions, Sayid is tortured by means of electrocution and fiery hot poker. So we’re still left wondering: What’s going on with these people and Sayid? It doesn’t make much sense for them to torture Sayid if his body is being used as vessel for Jacob (much like Locke’s body is now occupied by the man in black/smoke monster).
We do know—that is, if we trust the temple Others—that something dark is growing in Sayid. But what exactly? Could his body have been “claimed” by the smoke monster also? Maybe. If they want to keep the monster out of the temple, then it would make sense for their leader to try to slip Sayid a poisonous pill. Then again, it could be just another case of the island crazies he’s got. Whatever it is that’s going on with Sayid, we know that Claire’s got the same thing going on.
Finally we know Claire is still out there—even if she’s looking and acting more like Rousseau these days. Claire lives! In the jungle. Alone? There’s not much more to be sure of other than the fact that she’s alive, she has a “darkness growing” in her, and she shoots to kill (luckily for Jin, who was about to be the target of some misdirected Other violence before little ole’ jungle Claire came along).
We also saw Claire in her parallel universe after landing in LAX. Through a strange series of events (beginning with Kate hijacking Claire’s cab from the aiport,) Kate ends up taking Claire to the hospital when she feels she might be going into labor. (Parallel universe equivalent of Kate delivering Claire’s baby in the jungle.) Even creepy Other Ethan is there at the hospital—fitting because he’s the one who tried so hard to get Claire to give up her baby to the Others. Thank goodness Charlie killed him.
One more surprise was Sawyer’s tearful admission to Kate that he was going to propose to Juliet. Now that she’s gone, Sawyer’s gone more rogue than ever: escaping from the temple and barely able to look at Kate. Could the Kate/Sawyer/Jack love triangle be just a ghost of it’s former self? Sawyer might not be interested (at the moment), but it sure seemed like Jack was. Before Kate and Jin head out of the temple to find Sawyer, Jack grabs her arm and they share a goodbye and a knowing look. Looks like we’ll have to wait and see what fate has planned for that relationship.